Beltre Ruling Is Due Today

As baseball Commissioner Bud Selig prepared an explanation Monday for today’s ruling on Adrian Beltre’s request for free agency, the agent for the Dodger third baseman and officials of the players’ union were preparing their response.

Scott Boras and union officials in New York, anticipating that Selig will not declare Beltre a free agent, began to organize evidence they hope will free the player from his Dodger contract.

The union intends to file a grievance, charging the commissioner’s office with violating the Basic Agreement, before the close of business Thursday.

The Dodgers, accused of signing Beltre as a 15-year-old and falsifying documents to show he was the required 16, also would receive a copy.

Selig’s decision on Beltre is expected this morning. One baseball official called “too simplistic” reports that the Dodgers would be fined but would not lose Beltre, but did not argue that Selig would find that baseball’s statute of limitations had expired in the rule-violating signing of Beltre.

With spring training fewer than 60 days away and because the Beltre case deals with the player’s reserve status, the union will request expedited treatment in the arbitration process. It will seek a hearing, to be held either in New York or Los Angeles, in the first two weeks of January.

The hearing would be “full-blown,” in the words of a union official, and witnesses would be required to testify. Presumably, Beltre, his family in the Dominican Republic and key Dodger officials, former executive Ralph Avila among them, could be called before arbitrator Shyam Das, who would be hearing his first case of consequence since he was hired last season.

Das, however, would be under no obligation to rule quickly, leading to the possibility that Beltre might be in limbo at the start of spring training, or beyond.

The union would argue that the process needs to move quickly if Beltre is to have a meaningful opportunity as a free agent. It is confident that a decision can be reached before spring training.

It is believed that the commissioner’s office will contend that the players’ union has no jurisdiction in the Beltre matter, since the alleged violation occurred before Beltre reached the major leagues.

Expecting a decision favorable to the Dodgers, Boras flew to New York on Sunday. He said last week that the grievance procedure was nearly unavoidable.

“We knew that when this process started,” he said.